Athletics

Hi. This is the page for Bailey, Chris, Brian and not Theodore any more.. Hence the name ^. It is really awesome. It is THE best page. EVER.

STEP ONE: STATEMENT OF NEED

We are trying to boil a cup of water in less than ten minutes by heating a hot plate with an energy generator that we create.

STEP TWO: RESEARCH

CRIEMER aka THE CREATOR OF RATON
Problem: We need to make some water boil in less then 10 minutes. Our materials have to be taken from the classroom or bought for less than 2 dollars. The boiler should probably fit inside the science room.

To find information, I googled "Water Powered Generator"
1: Since I'm researching the idea of a water powered generator, I found this site pretty quickly- http://www.technologystudent.com/energy1/watr1.htm
This is some of the stuff I found there-
Making a small water powered generator is quite an easy task. The parts are shown below and include a propeller (which can be homemade) and a cheap electrical motor (3 to 6v). The motor is held in a piece of wood shape to form a handle.
A multimeter is set to read volts and connected using crocodile clips to the positive and negative probes.
Spinning the propeller by hand is normally enough to produce 0.3 to 0.6 volts. This can clearly be seen on the multimeter.
If the homemade wind generator is placed in a flowing stream, it will start to generate a small amount of electricity.
All in all, the site was pretty good but really short and not too detailed. 4/10

2: The second site I found- http://re-energy.ca/t-i_waterbuild-1.shtml
This site explained everything a lot better than the first. It explains how water from dams is used to spin turbines and make electricity, in great detail. The entire page is about making a hydroelectric generator, so everything on it is useful. It's also much longer than site 1. 9/10

3: The last site- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity
We all know Wikipedia. This was the longest and most detailed of the sites. I'm pretty sure this site has everything we need to know about how a hydroelectric generator works. The only problem was that the examples were all really large scale, like dams, so there weren't any ideas of how to make a small one for not much money except the "small-scale hydro-electric plants" section, which was mostly about China. 9/10

its kinda wordy and slightly hard to understand, but if the materials are under 2 dollars… it sounds like they know what they are talking about and it might work! helpful example piture to help understand it.

google searched a lot of variations of the words "does a lemon or a potao work best to make energy?"

pretty much, don't bother with any fruit or vegitables or any food to power anything at all. it isnt going to give off enough power to boil water in ten minutes. i think a hand crank like the one Ms. Thomas showed us in the middle of class last friday is the way to go, we can switch off people when our arm gets tired. Im still keepin an open mind though.

During lunch, Ian was telling me about tinfoil on a television connected to wires might work. the static would hold the foil on for us. it would have to be an old, energy un-efficiant tv's, because it gives off more power. I'm just throwing it out there… it might be worth a try

google search: how to generate electricity… its helpful and has a few sggestions

Baileys research:
Google searched how to make an electric power generator

http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/electricgenerat_spwc.htm
This site was very useful. It helped to thoroughly explain about how a generator works and how an electric current is formed when the electric field is broken. The electricity flows down what ever broke the field, usually a wire, and to where ever the wire goes.

I googled small electric motors and a couple of useful sites came up.

http://www.solarnavigator.net/electric_motors.htm
This website tells about how electric motors work. It is very useful. It tells about how to make a small generator that is not very efficient, but is still useful because it tells me what the minimum you can have in a generator and still have it work is. That was exactly what I needed to know for my project.

This website shows how to create a windmill. It’s a long process but it won’t cost much. It uses scrap materials to make it, the only thing that might be very costly is the tools if we don’t have all of them.

STEP THREE: BRAINSTORMING

Brainstorming ideas
tin foil across a tv Brian
wire wrapped around a small card board box with magnets inside
windmill turning magnets inside wires Teddy
windmill powered microwave
water powered generator Chris
hampster wheel
crank turning
cup of water on top of tall building
split atom inside water
potato generator
kite in thunderstorm
used tazer
spin around in a spinning chair with magnet and creat a magnetic field Bailey

Science Essays
(this is where we put our essays about our chosen way of creating energy.)

BRIAN: sorry, i didn't know where on da site to put this, so i figured the bottom would be pretty much outa the way. it's my 2 page thing… here it goes:

For science class we had to make a hot plate hot enough to boil water. This required a motor to make the electricity heat the hot plate. Each of the four people in our group had to think up and test a different kind of motor. I chose to try to figure out how to make aluminum foil on the screen of a television generate electricity. I finally figured out how to make it work on my third day of research! I found out on http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/popcan/motor.html that if you put two cans next to each other and then ran wire from one can to the tin foil attached to the screen of the television. Then attach another wire from the tin foil to an electrical ground and place a plastic rod: like a pen over the top of the two like a bridge, then last tie a string in the middle of the pen to a pull tab found on the top of soda cans onto the other end of the string (allowing it to hang about five inches from the pen,) it will make the pull tab move from side to side hitting each can for a long time. So long as the television is turned on this will supposedly keep hitting the two cans forever! There is a reason behind why this odd motor works the way it does. First of all, you have to understand that when you shut off or turn on the television it creates extra electrons. These electrons are left over ones from creating the picture. When the tin foil is on the television screen, it will take in all of the extras electrons. Metal is a conductor of electricity, so tin foil will take it all. The tin foil will also stick to the screen because of the electrons constantly being released from the screen. The wire connected to the tin foil and one of the two cans will bring all of the negatively charged electrons into the can. On the other side of this is the other wire connected to the opposite can which is connected to you. (No, this does not hurt, I have already tried it, and it only feels like a static shock) Opposite charges attract, and alike charges repel. That is why this works so brilliantly! Humans are filled with positive charges and it goes straight from you to the can you are connected to through the metal wire. The cans are only just far enough away that the positive charges in one can, and the negative charges in the other can not jump to the other. Charges are constantly trying to make everything equal. That is why when you rub your feet on a rug and touch somebody else, you electrocute them. The electrons are literally jumping from you to them: evening out your electrons and theirs! The only way for the two opposite charges to get to each other is to use the metal pull tab to jump across like Tarzan. Once you turn the television on, the fun begins! The negative electrons jump from the can attached to the TV, to the metal pull tab. Once they jump, they pull the metal tab over to the positively charged can. Once the metal tab collides with the other can, the positives jump off and run up the wire into you, meanwhile the negative charges get onto the metal pull tab. (This happens in only a split second.) once the tab is full, they are pushed away from the can they are at, because alike charges repel each other. They are pulled and pushed toward the television can. Once they get there, the positives run down the wire to the television, at the exact same time, the negatives climb aboard and are pushed off because (once again) alike charges repel. Once the metal tab collides with the other can again, the positives jump off and run up the wire into you, meanwhile the negative charges get onto the metal pull tab, once again! Since you are never going to “run out” of positive charges, and the television keeps on making more negatives, the cycle will continue forever until either you let go, or the television is shut off. (It’s also cool because it makes a cool clinking sound when the tab hits the cans.)This is how the tinfoil and TV motor works.

_
Chris Riemer
Hydropower

I’ll start with a short history of hydropower. Waterwheels have been in use in India, China, and just about everywhere else since hundreds of years ago. Since then, we’ve taken the idea and evolved it until it produces enormous amounts of energy. China produces the most by far, with the U.S. in fourth behind Canada and Brazil. My job was to take the idea that has led to the building of many huge dams, such as the Hoover, and make it small, inexpensive, and capable of producing enough energy to boil a cup of water.
In big hydroelectric generators on rivers, or dams, the general idea is this: the water flows down into pipes, or “penstocks” and spins the turbine. The turbine spins the generator. Generators aren’t that complicated, and the hydroelectric ones work like this: the powerful magnets inside the generator rotates close to insulated wire coils. The insulated wires make a flow of electrons. The electrons become an electrical current when the generator is connected to an electric circuit.
Though the generator is the most complicated part, the other parts like the turbine are just as important to make the whole thing work. The turbine “runners” or blades, can be made out of a variety of things. The one I liked most was a cork with spoon heads sticking out in eight places.
The construction would most likely be cheap, but the inside of the generator would be a bit fiddly and I’m not sure we have all the materials in the class. The turbine would be really easy, just some spoons, a cork, and hot glue gun. All in all, I think the hydroelectric generator would work really well. I think we would hook it up to a hot plate or even microwave pretty easily, but we might want to turn off the light in the microwave to keep it from using too much power. If we made the generator, just holding it under a sink would hopefully make enough electricity.

Since I lost my flash drive, I thought this would be a good place to put this- the actual project report.

Chris Riemer, Bailey Bush, Brian McFeeley
Science Project Report

Chris Riemer
Science Project Introduction
I began the project by studying hydropower, so I’m more of an expert in that than in what our project actually turned out to be. Just to be clear, our project (originally Bailey’s idea) is a spinning chair. The seat spins, and the magnets/wire around the base are the generator. First I will explain all I learned about hydropower, and then I will connect it to our project. They are actually very similar; the only big difference seems to be the kind of kinetic energy that is converted. Bear with me through the hydropower explanation, and you’ll understand how pretty much all kinds of kinetic-to-electric generators work.
Hydropower
I’ll start with a short history of hydropower. Waterwheels have been in use in India, China, and just about everywhere else since hundreds of years ago. Since then, we’ve taken the idea and evolved it until it produces enormous amounts of energy. China produces the most by far, with the U.S. in fourth behind Canada and Brazil.
My job was to take the idea that has led to the building of many huge dams, such as the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, and think of a way to make a small, inexpensive generator, capable of producing enough energy to boil a cup of water on a hot plate.
In big hydroelectric generators on rivers, or dams, the general idea is this: the water flows down into pipes, or “penstocks” and spins the turbine. The turbine spins the generator shaft, which leads to the generator (hence the name). The generator spins, and electricity is produced. For those non-science-teachers out there, you may be wondering how a spinning thingy can power your house.
Generators aren’t that complicated, and many, like hydroelectric and wind, work like this: the powerful magnets inside the generator rotates close to insulated wire coils. The insulated wires make a flow of electrons. The electrons become an electrical current when the generator is connected to an electric circuit. And there you go.
Though the generator is the most complicated part, the other parts like the turbine are just as important to make the whole thing work. The turbine “runners” or blades, can be made out of a variety of things. The one I liked most was a cork with spoon heads sticking out in eight places.
The construction would most likely be cheap, but the inside of the generator would be a bit fiddly and I’m not sure we have all the materials in the class. The turbine would be really easy, just some spoons, a cork, and hot glue gun. All in all, I think the hydroelectric generator would work really well. I think we would hook it up to a hot plate or even microwave pretty easily, but we might want to turn off the light in the microwave to keep it from using too much power. If we made the generator, just holding it under a sink would hopefully make enough electricity.

So, now you know pretty much how hydroelectric generators work. How, you ask, does this affect YOUR project? Though the method of spinning the generator shaft changes with different kinds of generators, (Turbines with hydroelectric and wind, a spinning chair with our project) the whole idea of a generator never changes. In both, you’ll notice, there are magnets and wire, and one of them spins.
Hypothesis
When I first heard the idea, I believed it was totally possible. After all, it was just a simplified hydroelectric generator. You didn’t need water to make it work, and the spinning shaft/mechanism was already in the chair. My hypothesis was that it would generate some amount of volts, but I wasn’t sure whether it would be enough to run a hot plate. In the end, it turns out it takes 9-10 to run a hot plate, and we generated 8 on our fastest turn. To continually generate 9-10 volts, we would have to spin the chair REALLY fast, for a long time.
MATERIALS AND METHODS BY: Bailey Bush
Spinning office chair
Duck tape
Wooden blocks (2” x 2”x 5”)
Copper wire
5 Wooden dowels (2” tall each)
Screws
Magnets
How we created this project was by finding an old office chair under the stairs at school. We then took of the wheels and the back and put wooden blocks were the wheels had been for more stability. Then we took wire and wrapped it loosely around the pedestal about a hundred times. Then we tapped magnets onto the pedestal inside the loose wire. We then took dowels that were 2 inches tall and taped them to the legs of the chair. We then taped the wire ring on to the dowels and took the two ends, sanding off the insulation on the outside of the wire. We then taped the two ends of he wires in to place next to each other and made them into little loops so it would be easier to hook up the volt meter and test the experiment.
CONCLUSION
Our project worked, it just wasn’t very efficient. We got results, but we didn’t get a lot of energy generated, so the project wasn’t very efficient. Our hypothesis was correct and we mite have not done enough coils of wire or we could have not had enough magnets. If we had more time then we could have made more coils of wire around the pedestal and fund or bought more magnets. Then the project would have worked better.